It's Been Quiet Here

I didn't intend to stay away for so long. But time snowballs, it piles up, it runs in circles around me. Has it really been over two months since I posted?

Summer has been long and hot and all kinds of overwhelming. It is typically my favorite season, sometimes I think I am made for summer. But this time around, I'm relieved it's almost over. I need a slower pace, space to think, time to write. I want to step outside and never come in.

At the beginning of July, I woke up one morning and was startled by my own loneliness, naked and stark. It sprung up from the earth fully grown, a solid apparition. I've been staring it down, decoding it, trying to unmoor it. These have been the moments of grace (one of these days I'll actually get in a photo).






Have I spent the last few years scarcely seeing? Or perhaps all of my life. Because every morning and evening I am alarmed by the sky. Something within me heaves and erupts. How did I miss this? A couple evenings a week at least, we get out to watch the sun descend. It's difficult to find a place with an unobstructed view without driving too far, but I try. It's a revelation, every time. We sit on a hill and I am a tightly wound spindle, thread pulled taut. The red flickers and expands. The sky was a muted blue, and now it is on fire, filling every crevice and empty space, burgeoning and full. I am being unwound, a tremulous unfurling. This is home.

I've spent the summer reading a lot of Annie Dillard and Madeleine L'Engle. This book is a constant companion. And this is one of the best things I read on the internet. It awakened something I worked hard to lull to sleep. It is good, searing.

I am stretching my fingers and leaning into this season. Loneliness does not have to be an enemy. I am hoping my best work will come from this place of transition, of discovery. I am praying for bravery, for the courage to step outside of what I know, to take risks, expand and stretch thin, make something beautiful of the small roundness of my life.

Thank you for walking with me. I will be back soon. The hiatus is over (I hope!)